Penguins

Yesterday we wrapped up our penguin unit.  It is one of my favorite units to teach and the kids really enjoyed learning about penguins too.  Here is a look at some of the things we did this week:

Arctic Animal Read & Write the Room {This is from my penguin mini-unit and can also be found in my Read & Write the Room All Year Long pack.}

 Word Sort {from Deanna Jump's Snowman Math & Literacy Fun}
Students sorted the words by if the ow sounded like snow or cow.  This was a challenge for my students, but most of them did pretty well.

Blizzard Blends {from Deanna Jump & Julie Lee's Winter Centers for Math & Literacy}
Students had to write the blend at the beginning of each word.

Pocket Chart Story {from Jessica Williamson's Wintery Fun Math & Literacy Unit}

 We wrote penguin facts on fish and added them to our "Learning About...." bulletin board.  {This idea came from Deanna Jump}

 We made these cute, quick, and simple penguin crafts.  I forgot to take a picture of the display I put up with all my students' penguins.  {You can find this craft and writing prompt in my TpT store by clicking here.}

We wrote about penguins this week.  We wrote about penguins together each day, but on Friday the students had to write two facts independently.  I was so impressed by what they wrote!  {This is from my Penguin mini-unit.}

"Penguins are great divers.  Penguins are great swimmers."

 "Penguins have a beak.  Penguins are black and white."

 "Penguins can catch fish.  Penguins have beaks."  

I loved the illustration on this one! :)

I saw this game idea on Deanna Jump's blog.  The students try to carry a ball like an Emperor penguin would carry an egg.  Deanna used nerf footballs, but we had these small white fuzzy balls in the gym closet so I used those instead.  The students had a blast!  They had to go from one side of the carpet to other carrying the ball without using their hands.  Some of them were quite good!

Next week we will be learning about MLK on Tuesday and then Polar Bears for the rest of the week.  Stop by to see what activities we do while learning about both MLK and polar bears!

I will using my friend Elizabeth's MLK unit to teach MLK.  If you haven't stopped by her blog Kickin' It In Kindergarten, then you need to!  It is super cute and she has a lot of great ideas.  

Then I will be using Deanna Jump's Arctic Animal Unit to teach about Polar Bears.

Have a great rest of your weekend!  I am loving the extra day we get.  :)